John Day

(1574-1640)

The son of a Norfolk farmer, John Day was a student at Caius College Cambridge (circa 1592) before being expelled for stealing a book. He traveled in Scotland and Ireland, and then settled in London where he composed or assisted in composing twenty-five plays, many of which are lost. Ben Jonson reviled Day, who had Puritan connections, as a low writer. The Parnassus Plays have sometimes been attributed to Day.

The Isle of Guls, as it hath been often playd in the blacke Fryars. 1606.The travailes of the three English brothers. 1607.Humour out of breath: a comedie. 1608.Law-trickes or, who would have thought it. 1608.The Parliament of Bees, with their proper characters. 1641.The blind-beggar of Bednal Green, with the merry humor of Tom Strowd the Norfolk Yeoman. 1659.Peregrinatio scholastica [MS, in Bullen, 1881].Works, ed. A. H. Bullen. 2 vols, 1881.